When the Council for a New Tomorrow was given the reins of Earth’s future in 2250, one of the first progressive steps taken by the robotic collective was the institution of Robot Time. Humans had long used flawed chronological systems such as the Caesarian and Gregorian calendars and the use of the term whenever.

With the return of lunar development, it was agreed that time should not adhere to a strictly terrestrial standardization. Such terms as minutes, hours, days, months and years were eliminated and replaced by a more metric format. The only measurement that was retained was that of seconds; though rather being the amount of time it takes light to travel 300,000 kilometers, it was redefined as the amount of time it took the slowest robot in the world (the Lenny-One) to calculate Pi to its final integer.

The new system was designed as follows:
100 seconds in a millicycle,
100 millicycles in centicycle,
100 centicycles in a decicycle, and
100 decicycles in a cycle.

To appease humans who felt they needed a well-defined short-term goal to reach (such as a previously coveted “weekend”), the sub-cycle was also instituted, equaling 10 decicycles.